ALARMISTS CALL FOR ALARM

Tim Blair

–,
Wednesday,
November,
14,
2012,(12:49pm)

Just when you thought the BBC had no more scandals, Guido Fawkes has revealed what the Beeb tried very hard to cover up: the 28 mysterious individuals who have been informing its climate change reporting policy. As a state-funded broadcaster, the BBC has a duty to provide balance. It rejected this on its environmental coverage after taking advice from people in a now-infamous 2006 seminar from people whose identity the BBC was keen to keep secret …

It’s a veritable who’s who of the green lobby.

Among the group, who convinced the BBC that “the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus”, are folk from Greenpeace, the Church of England (shame!), Stop Climate Chaos and Television for the Environment. (Via the GWPF.) And in other BBC developments:

A former BBC presenter has been charged with sexually abusing children, although it was not related to the ongoing Jimmy Savile investigations, British police say.

Events on screen made the head spin. A BBC anchor crossed to a BBC reporter standing outside the BBC, interviewing a BBC colleague about the BBC. Cut to a video package about the BBC, recorded earlier by a second BBC reporter. Then back to the first BBC reporter, to interview a third BBC reporter. First BBC reporter: “Is this just naval-gazing by the BBC?”

And so on, endlessly – each BBC reporter passing the baton of horror to the next. It felt like the world’s most miserable relay race, except there was only one team, and all of them were the losers.

Still, you couldn’t fault them for diligence. If the BBC had devoted as many reporters to the paedophile scandal as it’s devoting to the BBC scandal, there wouldn’t be a BBC scandal.

Apropos of the 28 experts, I would be much more interested in knowing what telling technical points they made in their presentations, rather than who they were. They did, after all, persuade an organisation whose charter presumably requires it to be even-handed to abandon all that fuddy-duddy stuff and go for out-and-out bias. They must have been pretty persuasive. To many of us lesser mortals out here, the technical case demonstrating that there is a man-made climate crisis looks pretty feeble. But what does the BBC know that the rest of us don’t?

It knew that its dominance of the media would repel any attackers or challengers.

Eventually hubris will bring them all down.

Pat K replied to John
Thu 15 Nov 12 (12:54am)

Eventually hubris will bring them all down

.

You’re probably right. The worry is that they will bring everybody else down with them and Bugger all we can do about it.
As the title bar on Jo Nova’s web site says

.... hate to see a good civilisation going to waste.

The left wing hand wringers aren’t the only ones with concerns about the future for their kids and grand kids.

Robert Crawford replied to John
Thu 15 Nov 12 (01:28pm)

I suspect their argument amounted to “it’s a good way to scare people into giving the government more power over their lives”.

More BBC covering BBC, but this time we are all just irrational hysterics. [url=http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/yes-the-bbc-got-it-wrong-but-its-journalism-is-as-robust-as-ever-20121113-29aic.htmlThey were just being robust ... nothing to see here.[/url]

Frankly, after the morass of anti Israel “reportage” the rush to promote climate change nonsense, and the general Smug inhabiting the British Broadcasting Church, none of this really surprises me.

I once rang the BBC to inquire about submitting some ideas to a aprticular entertainment dept. The very nice lady who answerd the phone said I could do that but to be careful as my idea might be stolen. She spoke as if it happened often.

Shame really, but anyone who sees the performance of the BBC pups (ABC, CBC ) and the BBC itself can be forgiven for wondering why they are not simply forced to fight for funding like anyone else.
Except the drama dept - that always seems to be good.

Let’s have a Claytons scandal.You know - the scandal you have when you’re not having a scandal! Oh, wait...the Gillard thing...sorry!

Start peeling away the veneer of the BBC’s public image and it will be exposed as an organisation that uses all its vast taxpayer-funded resources – news, current affairs, drama, light entertainment, radio, TV – to push a single political viewpoint.

I reckon it’s 80% of the media generally. We can blame a syndrome which fits the pattern and aftermath of what sometime commenter mareeS refers to as the “clowns and jugglers union” takeover of the media. The ABC and much of our media is under a union called the Media,Entertainment & Arts Association (MEAA). Couple this to the demonstrated takeover of journalism courses by folk of a leftist like mind, and the teaching of humanities (aka the Faculties Of Inconsequential Studies) with prejudices aplenty, and you have the perfect storm of airborne sub-intellectual dross which will screw our country just as it has Europe to date, and probably America pretty soon as well. See Mark Steyn’s book “After America” for more detail on that.

David replied to David
Thu 15 Nov 12 (08:47am)

Blogstrop. The MEAA lost me when it embraced Julian Assange as great journalist. Here was a bloke who simply put on the web anything that turned up attached to an email. He didn’t investigate, he didn’t ask questions, he didn’t write, or do anything that would be expected of a journalist.

Assange was a dealer in leaks, which he got for free and then “sold” for the fame and riches it brought him. Assange’s present troubles stem from his fame and how he used it, not from anything Wikileaks did.

Now let’s have a fair suck of the sauce bottle here.

I’ve got no problem with Guido Fawkes.

Even he mentioned the man that did the hard yards on this and sleuthed out the information that the Beeb spent so much time and money trying to hide.

If so, it was not a good choice - look how comprehensively they’re messing up their own operation.

On the other hand, if they can foul up the Church of Warming at least half as thoroughly ...

Off topic… but a classic comment from the department. (Note these are excerpts).

Federal police have been called to the scene of a rooftop protest at Villawood detention centre.
Three people have been protesting from a roof, estimated to be at least 7 metres from the ground, for three days.

Serco, the company running Villawood for the government, had trained negotiators talking to the group, he said.
Serco had also placed crash mats on the ground below the roof.

A department of immigration and citizenship spokesman said: ‘’We won’t be discussing the specifics of what’s happening on the ground.’’

I could train people to be that in about 10 minutes - 1 minute having them repeat after me “Jump ya pillock, stop wasting my time” and 9 minutes showing them how to properly connect a fire hose to the ring main.

I do like the pedantry of “… a roof, estimated to be at least 7 metres from the ground ...” Would that be at the ridge line or the eaves? Measured from the finished ground level or the natural surface?

And why did the ABC employ spanker Roebuck as part of it’s cricket commentary team?

Yes, give the correct credit Tim. Maurizio Morabito from Omnologos found the list on the public record using wayback machine while the BBC were paying lawyers 40,000 pounds a day to fight to keep it secret.

Good to see that Tim Evans from the US embassy was part of the ‘expert team’ advising the BBC. Also the Church of England was represented by a ‘specialist’. In prayer perhaps?

Jon Plowman, BBC’s ‘Head of Comedy’ probably contributed most to this BBC joke.

I seem to recall that a few years ago there was another scandal at the BBC whereby the friends and relatives of a TV game show host were - by sheer coincidence - often winning the prizes. What are the odds for that. Cannot dig up the link - but maybe someone else remembers more details about it.
I am not suggesting any impropriety - but just amazed at the coincidence.

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Most Recent Comments

Harry Bergeron says:
Plenty more on the BBC 28 at Watts Up With That
(Thu 15 Nov 12 at 06:33am)

ThinAndBritish says:
I don’t understand. If the BBC is so politically balanced, why on Earth would the Socialist…
(Thu 15 Nov 12 at 03:54am)

John says:
Apropos of the 28 experts, I would be much more interested in knowing what telling technical…
(Wed 14 Nov 12 at 08:30pm)

James says:
More BBC covering BBC, but this time we are all just irrational hysterics. [url=http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/yes-the-bbc-got-it-wrong-but-its-journalism-is-as-robust-as-ever-20121113-29aic.htmlThey…
(Wed 14 Nov 12 at 06:56pm)

Paratus says:
Let’s have a Claytons scandal.You know - the scandal you have when you’re not having a scandal!…
(Wed 14 Nov 12 at 05:34pm)